Nightmare
by The Sad Privateer
Summary: Before the escape, before the freedom, before the adventure that would take them from fugitives to icons, there was the nightmare. The building where the story began and the family formed. The School. Random one-shots from the flock's earliest days.
1. The Beginning

**Hey guys! So, this is my first Maximum Ride fanfic, and I'm not too sure how good I am, so please go with me on this, alright? This is going to be a collection of one-shots about the flock as little kids, at the School. I'm not really sure how this is going to go; how often I'm going to update, how many there are going to be, how long I'll keep the story going. . . I've got a lot of other stuff I'm working on at the moment, so we'll just have to wait it out and see. I _do _know, however, that I am going to stay at the School for all of the one-shots and that most of them will probably be pretty angsty - that is, after all, what I write best!**

**So anyway, please tell me what you think of this, and enjoy!**

The Beginning

In a large building in Death Valley, California, a single sliver of silvery moonlight weaved it's way through the iron bars that enforced a thick glass window—the only one in the room.

This single splash of natural illumination trickled into the dreary, forbidding chamber in which dog crates lined the walls, one after another, stacked high on top of each other, every single one housing a creature. Some of these creatures slept, undisturbed by the moonlight. Others twitched and rolled in agony, whimpering and snuffling softly. Some were curled up in the corners of their cages, staring with big, mournful eyes. But many, most of them in fact, didn't move at all. They would be removed from the room at sunrise to be disposed of, and another set of creatures would take their place.

In one of these cages, far from the door, one of the creatures jerked suddenly upright, the terror of her nightmare still visible on her face. She looked around wildly, as if expecting to find that the antagonists from her dreams had followed her to consciousness. Leaning her head back against the wall of her crate, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself, she stared at the single sliver of white moonlight that touched the floor of her cage, and heaved a heavy sigh that echoed through the large room, mingling with the subtle cries of her fellow sufferers. Out of one nightmare and into another.

Off on the other side of the room, there was a click as someone unlocked the door. The girl craned her neck to watch as it opened, and two figures clad in long white coats stepped through. One of these figures, the taller one, pushed a wheeled cart on which another dog crate was balanced. The other person reached for the light switch beside the door, but quickly lowered it's hand at a sharp bark from it's companion.

"Don't turn the lights on, you moron!" it hissed. "We don't want to wake any of them up—they're loud enough when they're asleep."

"When they're dead is more like it," the other person muttered. "What is that thing anyway?" he asked, pointing a finger at the dog crate on the cart as they pushed it across the room. "It looks like a kid."

"Look at it's back, you idiot."

There was a moment of silence. "Oh. I thought we already had one of those in here. Where'd it come from?"

"What do you mean, _where did it come from_? It came from the same place they all come from."

The figures were approaching the girl's cage, and she could now see that they were two men, one slightly older than the other. They looked tired and cranky, like they would rather just dump the dog crate they were pushing onto the floor and leave it there rather than rearrange all the others just so they could fit it in.

"No," the younger man said, "I mean, I've never seen it before. How long has it been here?"

The older man scowled. "Forever, from what I know. It's been kept in the sick ward for the last year or so; they thought it was gonna die."

"Was it sick?"

"Why else would it be in the sick ward, you nitwit? Now shut up and put it beside the other one."

The little girl in the dog crate watched fearfully as the two men stopped right in front of her. The older of the two stood back and frowned impatiently as the other one began to move the dog crates against the wall, sliding them around, stacking them on top of each other until there was a large space right beside the girl's own crate. Between the two of them, they lifted the new cage off the wheeled cart and shoved it roughly into the empty spot.

The younger man peered through the bars of the crate. "It doesn't look too good. Does it talk? The other one talks."

"It always looks like that," the older man snapped, turning away and stomping off towards the door, dragging the cart after him. "And it does talk. A little bit. Not much though—it's been driving Jeb insane."

The other man sniggered. "Serves him right," he said, following his companion across the room and to the door. The little girl watched as they stepped out and shut the door behind them. There was another click as it was locked once more.

Silence reigned again. The little girl scooted cautiously across her cage. The moonlight fell across her face, illuminating her chocolate brown eyes and hair, her pale, skinny arms, her curious expression. She adjusted herself so that she was sitting on her knees, and raised her face so that she was looking through one of the holes in the side of her crate and into the cage next to her.

For a moment, she couldn't tell what exactly it was that inhabited the thing. It was curled up in the very back, dark and still, facing away from her, a black mass in the gloom. Then her eyes focused on the creature's back, and she gasped at the sight of the graceful mound of glossy black feathers. The creature responded slightly to the sound of her gasp, shifting so that it was facing her and ruffling the huge black wings behind it.

The girl's heart leaped at the sight of the boy in the cage next to her. She couldn't tell exactly how old he was—he was about her size, but his eyes were dark and intelligent, and half of his face was concealed behind his flyaway black hair. He was a bit too big for his dog crate, just like her, and horribly skinny and pale. But it didn't matter. Her eyes were drawn once more to the black wings that framed his body, and she unconsciously ruffled her own multicolored wings.

He was like her.

Putting her face closer to the window in her crate, the girl cocked her head to one side and asked the newcomer in a loud, confident voice that echoed through the dark room, "What's your name?"

The boy flinched at being directly addressed, and his entire crate rattled. His dark eyes narrowed at her, and he didn't answer. The girl's spirits began to sink as the seconds passed, and still he didn't say a thing. He was just like the rest of them. Most of the mutants that she had for company couldn't understand her, and of the few who could, even fewer could speak. And even for the ones who talked, their speech was unintelligible and garbled, unable to be understood as they gibbered hysterically in a language that only they could translate.

She sighed in disappointment and gave the boy in the crate next to her one last look before beginning to turn away, sliding back to her corner to sleep. But just before she disappeared from the window, she heard it.

"Don't have one."

She stopped. "What?" His voice had been so quiet, she wasn't even sure she had heard it.

"I don't have a name."

For a moment the girl could do nothing but stare, overjoyed to the point of speechlessness that her neighbor had spoken to her. A huge grin stole across her face, the first one in a long, long time, and she brushed her brown hair away from her eyes as she smiled at the boy in the crate next to her. "That's okay. I don't have on either. Nice to meet you, though."

They looked at each other. Then one side of the boy's mouth tilted upward in a smile that was as subtle as his voice.

But it was still a smile.

And it was for her.

That was the beginning.

**I don't really think of this as Fax, but if you want it to be, it certainly could be the start of some little-kid Faxyness. I see it more as two kids who have been lonely all their lives finally finding someone to talk to. Like I said earlier, I'm not really sure how often I'll update--it could be every day, or I might forget about it for six months--so just hang with me, okay? Much love.**


	2. Room 309

**Another one! You can probably figure out who the people are, it's pretty easy. R&R.**

Room 309

In Room 309 of a building commonly called the School, a dark-skinned little girl sat alone on a hard metal table. The walls of this room were cold and white, and there was nothing else in the room with this girl except the table she sat on and a large, ugly machine in the corner that beeped in a steady, toneless rhythm.

There was no sound except for this discomforting beep and the slightly unsteady breaths of the girl, and the occasional _tap-tap-tapping_ of her fingers against the metal table. She was only a little girl, barely a toddler, and did not like to sit still. But she knew what would happen if she got off the table.

So she decided to stay put.

After several minutes of the crushing quiet, the girl looked up sharply as the metal knob on the door clicked loudly, and a small group of people stepped quickly inside the room. There were about fifteen of them, all adults of varying ages, dressed in formal clothing and long white lab coats. One of them carried a small silver case about the size of a first-aid kit in her hand.

The little girl shifted fearfully on the table, watching the adults as they filed swiftly over to one side of the room, clipboards under their arms and pens in their hands, chatting quietly to one another and staring at the girl. She could easily pick up their comments. "Why, she's so young!" and, "Look at her wings!" were the two most common.

The woman with the silver case and an elderly man with dark, mean eyes were the only two who didn't go stand on one side of the room. They walked right up to the girl, the woman setting her case down beside her on the metal table and flicking it deftly open while the man stood with his arms crossed over his chest and glared at everyone.

From the silver case on the table, the woman removed a small syringe filled with sickly yellow liquid.

The girl began to tremble.

"Is this enough?" The woman turned to her companion, and he scowled at the syringe.

"It damned well should be. Don't want to kill the thing, do you?" His voice was low and gravely and harsh.

The woman lowered her gaze, taking a swab of cotton out of the silver case and dousing it in a strong-smelling purple liquid that bit into the girl's brain. She tried, unsuccessfully, to quell her trembles as the man reached out and roughly grabbed her left arm, holding it out to the woman, who cleaned a round patch of skin near the girl's elbow with the cotton.

"Lay down."

The man took the little girl's shoulder, pressing it back. She tried to resist, but he was far too strong. She allowed herself to be pushed into a laying position on the metal table. The man strapped her down while the woman fingered the syringe.

The little girl stared at the bright white ceiling, unable to stop hot tears from spilling from her eyes and rolling down her face. She knew what was going to happen.

The other scientists, apparently, didn't. "What is that?" asked one man, pointing to the syringe in the woman's hand.

She gave him a cold look. "It's our newest experiment," she said briskly. "Designed to enhance the physical capabilities of people with certain blood types. The medicine will enter this creature's circulatory system, and she will begin to change. It will take several days, but when it's over, she will be incredibly resistant to physical damage."

The man who had asked the question scowled. "I've heard of this before. Doesn't it kill them?"

"If they're not strong enough, yes, it is possible that they will not survive the experiment. It's incredibly painful."

The girl on the table whimpered.

They ignored her. "Get on with it," barked the man who was in charge, looming over the table, watching the little girl.

Without hesitation, the woman inserted the needle into the patch of skin on the girl's arm that she had cleaned, and slowly lowered the plunger, injecting the yellow liquid. The scientists on the other side of the room craned their necks to see better, clipboards and pens at the ready.

The little girl sobbed.

Out in the hallway, a man named Jeb Batchelder was walking briskly by. Holding his hand, rather reluctantly, was a boy a few years older than the girl in Room 309, tall for his age and skinny, with strawberry-blond hair and bright blue eyes. Sprouting from between his shoulder blades was a pair of large wings.

"Come on, son, no time to waste," Jeb urged the boy as he dragged him down the hall, and the child scowled.

Experiment Number 97725 always _had_ been a little disobedient.

"What are you doing, boy?" Jeb demanded as his charge came to a sudden stop, not allowing himself to be drug another step. "We're already late."

The child attempted to pry his hand from Jeb's grasp. He was staring at one of the metal doors. "Don't you hear that?" His voice was small and husky from lack of use.

The scientist frowned. "Hear what?"

"The screaming." The boy stared at the door, ruffling his wings in discomfort. "Can't you hear it?"

Jeb couldn't, but he didn't doubt for a moment that it was there. Experiment 97725 had hearing abilities far beyond his own, and if he heard something, than he wasn't imagining it. Besides, Jeb had noticed the number on the door. He knew what was going on in Room 309 today.

"Never mind that. We need to go."

"But. . ." The boy continued to stare at the door. "But it sounds like a person."

The boy wasn't used to hearing human screams. Most of the things he heard at night were howls and whimpers, whines of animals, of creatures human at one time but not anymore. There was nothing at the School that sounded like _him_. "What's happening in there?"

"Nothing we need to think about," Jeb said, and he meant it. He didn't want to think about what was happening in Room 309. "Now let's go."

He tightened his already vise-like grip on the boy's hand and started dragging him down the hallway again. The child resisted, scowling the whole time, but was eventually hauled down the corridor and shoved around the corner.

But before he went he cast one last look back at the door of Room 309, the agonized, piercing shrieks of the little girl with chocolate-colored skin ringing loudly in his ears.


End file.
